Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1887-01-21
The YEAR 1897.
Some Philosophical Spccuiations ne TO
what 1t May Bring Forth.


Another "ccntennial' date, that Of
the Federal Constitution. We have
been nation ono hundred years. 1t
J is u pretty date to write; after the stiff
IS the pen flourishes so easily down the
tail of the z. The years have somehow
run away very fast since 1850, going
down hill to .ho end of the century. In
fourteen short years moro the Drawer
will be trying, in its faithfulncss to tho
twentieth century, TO keep out of its
columns the facctm of the ninctccntl.
The nineteenth century, of which we
nre proud now, will be analysed and
criticised and condemned as we now
condescend to talk about the eighteenth.
On the day that 1901 comes in, tho
same able writers who the day before,
in the press, used the term nineteenth
century" as If it were q kind of final
achievement in itself will turn on it in
patronizing manner. They will speak
about the twentieth century sifthcy had
made it, and that it must necessarily
excel all the others. They seem great
many years, 1887, do they notP They
are really only little fragment of time,
which has dignity only from the fact
that we are adding to it. 1t is an old
ronccit we have OF it. Looked mt in
one way, it is n respectable date, but
how long shall we be able to add to it
and keep it going in the world? There
have been several attempts Mt contin-
uous date, but they have all broken
down. How long shall we keep up
oursP 1t is a pity for scientific pur-
poses that we could not have had uni
vcrsally, as the Hebrews have, n con-
tinuous date. Our breaking time in two
in this way causes immense historical
confusion, leads to an unjust estimate
of the past, and adds to our conceit.
1t gives the impression that the his
torical stream is not continuous; in
decd, we absurdly try to make it run
both ways from what we call the year
/. Hence much of the theological diff
Guilty in making people feel that the
New Dispensation is actually Il contin-
uation of the Old Dispensation. We
begin with our and run it up forward,
with an increasing sense of power.
And we turn about and cast it up back
ward for the ancient nations, endeavor-
ing to run the civilizations of antiquity
into the ground somewhere. 1t gives
false impression-if we may say it, q
"petering OUT appearance to the old
nations. Take the Egyptians, for ex-
fThn,- 10, hn Cr ~ a "
in time toward us, losing year after
year instead of gaining. We know, in
deed, but we have to learn it painfully,
that the Egyptians did not live back
ward in this way. 1t is. of course, alb
surd to suppose that Menes, when he
came to his throne in Memphis, dated
his order to dig the first canal 1904, ac-
cording to Mariette, or 1923 according to
Bunsen, or POO according to Wilkin-
son, or whatever it was, and that every
year thereafter he dropped one year
5OO3, 1922, 2699, and so on. And yet
this is the way it appears to our minds,
with our queer chronology. Looked at
honestly, it is not much of a date, this
1887. Nor is it new. The Pharaoh
who used it-and no one knows what
Pharaoh it was-no doubt was consci-
Gus that it had been used before him,
and he regarded it rs merely the begin
ming of the years that Egypt would pile
upin increasing glory. The Pharaoh
who wrote 1887 may have had some
conceit in the figures, but it was cheap
pride. The vain attempt of the Phar-
aohs in this direction ought to make us
modest of our little achievement in the
way of date. All the people before us
have doubtless ilattered themselves that
their eras would endure as long as the
world lasts.
We are interested in this year 1887,
however-as the Court was about TO say
when it interrupted itself-not because
it is centennial year, or to speculate
whether it will be a year of war, or
earthquake, or droughts, but to see
whether tits going to be good year for
.srealismn in fiction, or whether the
''idcalists" will begin to get an inning.
1t is such seesaw world that one can
only keep his head by taking long
historical perspective, and noting what
tales they are that the race cares to
preserve through all the ages. We
want to stick to facts, but there are 50
many sorts of facts, material and inn
material, and human nature is double,
and men are perverse. They are Sc
unreasonably interested, even in this
scientific age, in the arabian Nights. "
1t is absurd that camel-driver should
rise to marry the daughter of the Grand
Vizier, and become Grand Vizier him
self, and rule over the kingdom. In
order to be true to life he should have
continued to be camel-driver till his
camel died, and every thing went
wrong with him, and he married q
woman who drank, and took to has.
heesh, and ended as n beggar. 1t i:
much better for us to read about
this sort of camcl-driver than the other
After all, the philosophers are merely
quarrelling about definition. 1t is as
necessary to satisfy in fiction the higher
aspirations of the mind rs its lowel
tendencies; "high life" is as real, al
admit, as slow life" Purity and vir
tue are just as "real'' us their oppositei
| (though not so common), and the
steady contemplation of them in fictior
is more likely to be ennobling than thu
contemplation of the inferior and thu
vulgar. 1t is not Il new notion in tht
world, but it is II queer one, that tn,
base and unpleasant in life are more
"real" than the pure and the agreeable
Is it more necessary for the good o
mankind that the former should b'
paraded rather than the latterp Civ,
us life" by all means, o lictionists o
the year 1887. Do not eXaggerate tn,
bad or make the good seem impossible
but let us hear now and then abou
Joseph and Abraham Lincoln and Tx
fortunate camel-driyer, and let us asso
| rintn orpnsionnllv sinful MS Np are